


Notes from Raffin's Coronation

by emily_in_the_glass



Category: Bitterblue - Kristin Cashore, Seven Kingdoms Trilogy - Kristin Cashore
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-13
Updated: 2015-04-13
Packaged: 2018-03-22 15:25:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3733894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emily_in_the_glass/pseuds/emily_in_the_glass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nine years after Bitterblue, feelings finally come to fruition when all is well in the Seven Kingdoms.  Find out what our favourite Council leaders are up to!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Notes from Raffin's Coronation

Raffin ascended to the throne in a time of peace and prosperity in the Seven Kingdoms.

To the north, the Nanderan Assembly had ruled well for nine years, investing in the careful management of their freshwater resources and rolling farmlands to build lovely lakeland towns that were considered some of the best places to live in the Seven Kingdoms. The democratic government of Estil, initially unstable, had emerged from abject poverty as a land of harsh mountain climes and infertile soil to the thriving centre of a pivotal trade route between the Dells and the Seven Kingdoms in the last four years. These two countries were governed by Council allies, and would be King Raffin's allies.

Murgon's son surprised everyone by joining the Council when his sister Milla -- the princess who was bethrothed to Prince Raffin of Middluns -- eloped with a Sunderan sea-captain. In a fit of rage, Murgon had ordered for her capture and execution, and the massacre of the sea-captain's extended family in the forests beyond Suncliff. Prince Alik of Sunder brought this intelligence to the Council, the execution was intercepted, and the families offered refuge in Estil and Monsea. King Alik has since become a good friend of Raffin, and Bann.

The Westeran king and his first heir were assassinated by a rebel Graceling not long after the Estillian revolution. In the chaos that followed, it emerged that the people still desired a royal leader, but most of those who were left in the royal family were reluctant to risk a position so vulnerable to attack. King Birn's third daughter courageously rose to the throne as a head of state, transferring all ruling decisions to a parliamentary body, writing long letters to the Queen of Monsea -- the very kingdom her hotheaded father had been on the verge of declaring war on -- for advice, and Bitterblue wrote back to Queen Berenice of Wester with grace and confidence.

So it was rather ignominious that King Randa of Middluns choked to death on a bone during a fit of guffaws one night at dinner, refusing to let his medicine-maker son, and his son's companion Bann, come to his aid.

\---

"King Alik is eager to get started on the aerial cable coaches," Po was saying to Bitterblue as they rode into the Middluns for Raffin's coronation. Years ago, Po had the idea of building an aerial tramway over the mountains to transport goods and passengers, inspired by how supplies had been brought up the mountain at Ror City via a system of pulleys and Lienid cable wire. "Raffin has promised to invest in it, too, he's supportive of any system that speeds up the exchange of information between the Middluns and Monsea."

Bitterblue beamed: in less than a decade, she had brought Monsea from shocking illiteracy to a country that was beginning to acquire a reputation for art, literature, and advanced education. Scholars travelled from all over the Seven Kingdoms to learn at various reputed institutions, including a School of Medicine lead by advanced Dellian researchers that Raffin, and Bann, were enamoured with. The Monsean royal library's collection was rivalled only by the libraries in Pikkia and in the Dells. 

"So you'll come to Monsea after the coronation, to oversee its construction." Bitterblue couldn't hide how pleased she was. "And how goes your other inventions?"

Free from Council work, Po spent what Katsa considered an inordinate amount of time at his castle tinkering with metal. He was building a flying machine that could glide above the seas, landing lightly in the water on pontoons. "Captain Faun and I took it for a test ride to Skye's castle, before I left. I think Katsa will enjoy it, when she learns that we can race across the south seas at a five times the speed of a ship, with the wind whistling right past our ears."

"She'll find it even better than perching up in the riggings of a ship." Bitterblue declared.

Katsa was in Raffin City, setting up another girls' martial arts school. The first school she had founded was Monsean, which she left in the capable hands of seven trained female instructors in her absence. The schools would make self-defense a regular part of the curriculum in all Seven Kingdoms. Katsa would still continue to give itinerant lessons in every city and village, but the schools meant that lessons could continue in her absence. "And I want to convince her to explore the south seas with me, when the aerocraft engine is improved sufficiently to sustain a long trip," Po went on, dreamily. "We could land on uninhabited islands like a pair of gulls." 

Yes, you two would like that, Bitterblue thought carelessly before Po flashed her a smirk. Aloud, she said, "You could speak to the Pikkian physicists about the engine. Giddon thinks they might have some ideas. We would bring them in, anyhow, to consult with the Lienid engineers for the cable tramway."

"Giddon! I wonder how he feels to be back in the Middluns after all this time. Raffin will make him a lord again, if he likes."

It was a good question. King Randa had seized Giddon's estate for treasonous Council work just before the Estillan revolution, leaving him homeless, dissenobled, exiled. Unlike Katsa -- also banished and disinherited by King Randa -- who could gladly survive in the wilderness for the rest of her days, Giddon's loss of his estate, his beloved servants, the town that he governed, broke his heart. Like Katsa, he was always welcome at Po's castle in Lienid, but its isolation drove Giddon to unendurable boredom. He preferred to spend his time as a guest in the parliaments of Nander and Estil, or at the court of Monsea (where Bitterblue's housekeeper, Helga, had re-employed many of his servants), fraternizing with noble and civilian Monseans in his easy, amiable way.

Bitterblue did not answer as she wondered what it would be like to have Giddon an aerial ropeway's ride away, rather than a door's knock away in the guest wing of her castle. In fact, she stared straight ahead into the August fields and sealed her thoughts from her unerringly perceptive, Graced cousin.

\---

It was after the long coronation festivities, the endless dinners where Bann, newly first minister of the Middluns, gave eloquent speeches alongside King Raffin, the dinners where Bitterblue finally met the Queen of Wester for the first time in person and liked her as much as her letters, where Katsa and Po had long since walked out and were said to be scuffling in the fountain and later amongst the straw dummies in the archery range, that Giddon came to sit at Queen Bitterblue's side. Queen Bitterblue turned from her conversation with Queen Berenice, and gave him a small, quick, glad smile.

"Have you any important state engagements for tomorrow? If not, will you come riding with me? I want to show you the Middluns."

"You'll visit your estate." she said, simply.

"Yes, I want to see how the town is faring now. They told me the castle was never rebuilt, so we'll find a ruin. I... I feel I could bear it better, if you were with me." Giddon said, frankly. Bitterblue nodded her assent, for they had brought much of their worst news to each other in the last decade, finding comfort and strength in their promise never to always speak the truth to each other.

They rode, companionably, along ripening fields where waves of light and shadow played. The Queen's guard rode several paces ahead and behind, just out of sight, leaving them free to converse with privacy, though they did not. They had not been alone for some time. One truth hung between them, as it often did, in these moments.

Bitterblue had begun reading Leck's translated journals again after her twenty-fourth birthday, when it had happened for the first time. She'd read silently with Giddon's arms around her, and Giddon would read over her shoulder, her soft hand tightly squeezing his to get through the worst parts. It felt right to Bitterblue to be where she was, resting her unpinned hair against his shoulder, finding some well of strength within herself as he kept her from falling under the weight of the past. She took a deep breath and asked:

"Giddon, would you like to kiss me?"

It took Giddon some time to answer her. "Yes, I would like to, very much so," he spoke softly. "But I won't do it. It's... it's nothing to do with you, and everything to do with me. I'm a Council leader, there's unrest in Wester, and Murgon has put a price on all of our heads," Giddon's timbre had risen, "so that the mountain pass isn't even safe for us to use until Alik is king. Fortunately, we have the tunnels. But if I were your husband, I would invite trouble directly to Monsea. I would endanger you, dear Bitterblue."

"That isn't just to do with you. It has everything to do with me, too," Bitterblue corrected him. "I'm the Queen of Monsea. I understand that we can't, if you won't."

Another time, Giddon was distraught to learn that the man he had helped set up as the Estillan Minister of Trade was corrupt: a Council sympathizer whom he had befriended, recommended, nominated, and who seemed a competent leader for three years before he left for Sunder with embezzled gold. On the floor of his room, Bitterblue embraced softly Giddon as he grieved over his friend's betrayal. 

"You must go, Lady Queen." He pulled her arms away from his side rather suddenly, looking at her intently in a way she recognized. She wanted to kiss him. She did not want to disentangle herself from him. "Bitterblue. I find myself dreaming of something that I shouldn't," he said, with an intensity that was both frightening and endearing to her.

"I want you to do it." she whispered.

"I would never dishonour you that way," Giddon told her sternly. "I'm not like Po. I would not have you lie in my bed without giving you a promise, one I'm in no position to give."

"I don't need a promise -- "

"Bitterblue, it's wrong that -- "

"Giddon, we both know that's a bad idea to marry at present. But I would still lie with you now if you'll have me. I don't believe it is wrong," she found hot tears falling fast, through her frustration and sympathy.

"But I do," Giddon replied, determinedly. "It matters to me whether we are to be married or not."

Bitterblue did not agree, but she understood.

 

THEY visited the townspeople who all remembered and were glad to see their former Lord Giddon, who told them their stories cheerfully, for they seemed content. They rode up to what was left of Giddon's castle. Giddon touched the charred grey walls as they silently picked their way through the ruins, finally returning the sun-streamed courtyard, where water still trickled from the fountain and wildflowers grew effusively through the cracked stones.

"It must have been a beautiful castle." Bitterblue said, warmly, wistfully, putting her small hand in his. "I'm sure I would have liked it."

"You would."

"Will you rebuild, now that Raffin has compensated you for your loss?"

"I'm thinking of declining the lordship." Giddon said, which could only mean one thing that Bitterblue hardly dared hope for.

"But your people look up to you," she argued, "they like you so much, and you've been a good ruler to them. You love it here. It means so much to you, to be back in the Middluns. This was your home."

He was holding both her hands now.

"It was my home," he repeated. "I was Lord Giddon nearly ten years ago. I am glad they remember me well, let it be so. They are well, and they will continue to be well without me. They do not need me here, and... and I would be very lonely without you."

He was still holding her hands. Bitterblue could not breathe.

"I asked Katsa to marry me, here, seventeen years ago, a very long time ago," he continued. "I was infatuated with her, and she was in some trouble with King Randa, and I thought I could marry her and protect her from Randa's wrath. I know I was very young and foolish then. I learned, when I realized how dear you had become to me, Bitterblue, that marriage offers no protection in these troubled times,"

"Except to our hearts," Bitterblue interjected. "You have always protected me from the most troubling of my feelings, Giddon, and I've tried to do the same for you."

"You're right. Bitterblue, it would've been irresponsible to ask you to marry me years ago, but now the kingdoms are well. It would no longer endanger you."

"Nor is Monsea so easily endangered, with the Monsean guard and the Monsean navy," Bitterblue snorted impatiently.

"My point is -- "

"Giddon, I know your point, and Giddon, you know that I love you. Of course I agree."

"I would prefer to ask you myself." Giddon said, a little sulkily.

"Alright, you may ask me." Bitterblue stated.

Giddon took a deep breath and smiled.

"Bitterblue, will you marry me?"

"Yes." 

Bitterblue smiled, too, so warm was the sun on her hair and cheeks when his mouth came crashing down upon hers.

Some time later they were nestled in a hollow in Giddon's fields, the sun warming her bare chest, warming the length of Giddon's body against hers, his breath warm in the hollow of her neck. The grasses rustled gently as they moved with one another. What Giddon's melodious voice murmured into her ears was very sweet. They were glad at the thought of a future spent in each other's arms.

"I believe you'll make a good King of Monsea," she said, pensively, with his arms wrapped around her afterwards, her forehead nestled against his soft beard. "You've befriended so many Monseans, and I think they like you nearly as much as your townsfolk do."

"The Monseans do not need a King, for they have a Queen that they have every right to be proud of," Giddon said, seriously. "But all the same I'm glad, for I like the Monseans very well, and of course I'm to rule again I mean to rule well with you." And then he was kissing her again, and again, and yet again, all their years of pent-up love finding expression in the peace of the afternoon.

**Author's Note:**

> Po's idea of building cable cars over the mountains of Sunder and Monsea can be found in the Secret Council Letters from the Spring of Bitterblue's Eighteenth Year, which can be read on Kristin Cashore's blog.


End file.
